 Quote by NateTG
Honestly, it's hard to imagine why anyone decided to put wings on a spacecraft in the first place.
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To land on a runway and reuse more of the craft.
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Parachutes are well-understood, reliable, smaller, and lighter.
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But are at the mercy of the wind and require a water landing and recovery - and you can't just lift a 727-sized object out of the water and drop it onto an aircraft carrier with a helicopter.
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I have no idea how important the wings are to the earlier aspect of the shuttle's reentry
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Extremely, but they could be gotten rid of if the system were completely redesigned.
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or what kind of cost equation goes to retrofitting the shuttle with a parachute system of some variety.
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for the shuttle itself, it simply isn't possible. It would require a completely different vehicle.
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As a bonus it puts almost no restrictions on the shape of the craft for that part of reentry.
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Well, no, the restrictions are quite similar to the restrictions on earlier capsules. There
is some complex aerodyanamics and thermodynamics at work there.